Where the Women Bloggers Are

Last year, a brilliant blogger pointed out that my blogrole was 100% male. And while talented as those boys may be…where indeed were the women on my wizard list? Being a brand new blogger myself at that time, I realized that the people that originally inspired me to blog happened to be male. After much thought, I expanded my wizard list to include my accessibility heroes as well. In addition to reviewing my blogrole, I joined forces with some bloggers to explore the question so well asked by Molly at SXSW 2005, “Where are the Women of Web Design“?

At NetSquared 2006, I had the opportunity to hear Elisa Camahort, co-founder, BlogHer. She showed me exactly where the women bloggers are! And I encourage you to head to BlogHer to register yourself, if you are a female blogger, or register a female blogger that inspires you!

So what is the portrait of the new internet storyteller? According to recent Pew/Internet research on bloggers:

The blogging population is young, evenly split between women and men, and racially diverse.

• The most distinguishing characteristic of bloggers is their youth. More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. Like the internet population in general, however bloggers are evenly divided between men and women.
• Another distinguishing characteristic is that bloggers are less likely to be white than the general internet population. Sixty percent of bloggers are white, 11% are African American, 19% English-speaking Hispanic and 10% identify as some other race. By contrast, 74% of internet users are white, 9% are African American, 11% are English-speaking Hispanic and 6% identify as some other race.

Which brings me to my newest goal to help achieve internationalization where the motto is: “Making the World Wide Web truly world wide!” Onward!